The sixth advantage of democracy: citizenship. With rights come responsibilities, such as the duty to respect the rights of others. There is no freedom for me that does not acknowledge your freedom. Your right to promote your interests is tempered by your duty to accept that I have equally valid interests. Democratic citizens have a duty to contribute some participation to the polity, to make themselves informed and to make their views and interests known. They are expected to participate in elections (although in most democracies this duty is moral rather than legal), and obliged to (reasonably) oblige their governments. In democracy, duties are the flip-side of rights. In autocracy, there is the servitude of duties without rights. It is the dialectic of rights and duties that makes for grown-up citizenship.

For more detailed analysis, see How Democracies Live.

On democracy and obedience, see Nation of Devils.